1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a content reproducing apparatus, and more particularly to content reproducing apparatus such as a television receiving apparatus having parental control (lock).
2. Background Art
With the diversification of society, broadcast programs have also become diversified. In an attempt to deal with such diversification, parental control technologies are being more frequently employed to put a cap on the age under which certain programs are prohibited from being viewed.
For example, a technology to exert control on parental control is proposed (see Patent Document 1) whereby, for programs for which no parental information is set on the part of the broadcasting station, the user sets condition information (channel number, time slots, genre, etc.) on the part of the digital broadcast receiving unit on an individual program basis. In another technology (see Patent Document 2), self-parental information is set in a parental information area that originally exists in each program, separately from the broadcaster's parental information, so that parental control can be set on an individual program basis without an associated increase in memory.
Patent Document 3 discloses another technology for limiting the watching of harmful programs, wherein ratings are set for undesirable programs and if the rating of a received program corresponds to a set rating, that program is prevented from being watched. This publication proposes a view control circuit called “V-Chip”. With regard to such V-Chip parental control (lock) technology, Patent Document 4 discloses that applicable hours are set so that the parental control can be lifted to allow view without requiring the input of a password. Further, Patent Document 5 discloses a technology to cause a rating to be displayed on screen so as to allow the parents to quickly determine whether or not a program they are currently watching is desirable for themselves but not for children.    Patent Document 1: JP Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 2001-145033 A    Patent Document 2: JP Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 2004-7514 A    Patent Document 3: U.S. Pat. No. 4,554,584    Patent Document 4: JP Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 2001-251582 A    Patent Document 5: JP Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 2000-184305 A